Happiness

“Not enough time”, “Not enough support from others”, “Lack of ideas”, topped the list for my survey question: “What is in your way of having more satisfaction from your career”. All these seem correct and expected. It would be wonderful if

Few weeks back I was giving a talk at a big tech company about focusing on the vision. As usual someone asked this basic question- “I don’t know what my vision is”! I am not surprised. This was my question only

Too many times companies send employees to trainings to fix the areas of weaknesses, we expect people to be well rounded to be successful. The fact is excellent performers are hardly “well rounded”, they are sharp. The difference between an

[Key point: I have described how vision focus works as a great parenting tool for me. It not only helps to manage the current situation more gracefully, it gives a greater clarity and builds a more sustainable foundation for the

[Key point: If you are doing everything right, working hard and still not getting the fulfillment, don’t just label it as the mid-life crisis. You may be ready to transition to the next maturity stage. It’s your choice to pay heed

I ask this question to my clients and class participants: Describe some occasions from the recent past when you felt excited and fulfilled. The common responses I get are, “when I graduated college”, “got my dream job”, “had my last

Last year, an engineer, let me call him Tom, came to me. He looked very tired and unhappy. “Sharmin, I am working long days, late nights, still my manager wants me to do more, have more impact, show more leadership…where

[Anyone is capable of making the transition to the next level – it is not tied to a dollar amount or an age limit.] Found this recently: Everyone lives at one of three levels in life: Survival, Success and Significance.

[If you are reading this only to find another “but” for not making any change, please give yourself permission to use this time for something else :). -Sharmin] Last week I saw two relevant posts on this topic, one in

Have you ever heard an extrovert having a development plan to become quieter or making an effort to have lone time for them? Probably not too often. But if you are an introvert there are tons of feedback for you to

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When I met Sharmin, I was grieving the loss of my old project and overwhelmed with the scope of the new project I inherited – one that I had no passion for, but felt an obligation to my employees and team to help transition into the team. I knew I needed a change, but had trepidation about how to even begin the process of finding a job outside of my organization or company.
I wanted a quick fix – a pep talk to motivate me to get over my fears and get a better job as soon as possible. Sharmin made me look my career and life at a higher level. She challenged me to explore and identify my values. Once I had mapped out exactly what my core values were, in both my life and my career, she helped me identify the instances in my career where I was truly living my core values, when I was truly being my authentic self, and when and where I had a true sense of fulfillment and happiness.
Her holistic approach to coaching opened my eyes. Through these new lenses of my values and my higher self, I gained clarity about the type of job, and the type of people, I really wanted to work with to achieve true happiness. Since we began our sessions, I’ve had profound changes internally and externally:
I was promoted; I gave up the role of manager which I found unfulfilling, and refocused on my role as a software engineer; I left my old team and found a new organization where I feel my values and those of my management and peers are closely aligned; and I’ve become closer to my family and my loved ones.

Principal SW Engineering Lead - Microsoft

Thank you for taking the time to share your insights with us. In particular, I really like your advice to think of our goals in terms of being outcome based, which helps me think more concretely in terms of what I really want. It is also nice to be reminded that there are a lot of factors that contributes to our happiness, work and family is just a part of the happiness pie.

S. Chan
Microsoft

Sharmin is an excellent executive coach and I would recommend her to anyone looking to engage in leadership development. She helped me discover my career intention, which resulted in an accelerated path to a leadership role over a five-month period. Her coaching methodology is focused on professional and personal development, which is key to be an effective leader in today's business climate.

D. Nibberich
Senior Director- Technical Sales

Sharmin helped me reshape my thought process and approach to managing people and issues on a daily basis. Sharmin has also shown me the value of dedicating time to focus on being intentional and including all supporting team members in the journey. This has allowed me to leverage the collective group when trying to achieve goals. I would recommend Sharmin as a career coach to anyone that wants to take their career to next level.